


Common Ground

by mistrali



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23570932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/pseuds/mistrali
Summary: Written for Inktober’s prompts ‘Build’ and ‘Swing’.
Comments: 21
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Build

Jory doesn’t seem to mind that most of her cooking will last only as long as it takes to disappear into the patients’ stomachs (or, on Anyussa’s days off, the Bancanors’ and their guests’). It baffles Nia, who likes building solid, sturdy pieces; likes matching grain to grain, colour to colour. It’s something she and Daja share: quietness, stillness, the ability to take something strong and make it stronger.

But when she sees Jory’s gloves stained magenta from beetroot for borscht and pickling, she grins. “You could use that to stain wood,” she says, thinking of the dark streaks on her own hands when she comes back from Camoc’s after a long day of staining and polishing.

Jory jerks her thumb at the eight unpeeled and three peeled-but-whole beetroot on the kitchen table. “Go ahead,” she says, in a put-upon tone. “She’ll just make me do them over again anyway. At least if you saw them up, it’ll be quick.”

“I’m sure it will,” says Nia, rolling her eyes at her sister’s dramatics. “Can I wash my hands and help? I’m tired of sanding.”

“Don’t complain to me when you get bored,” grumbles Jory, but she fetches a second knife and a pair of gloves very obligingly. It is, Nia discovers, every bit as tedious as Jory has said. But as she scrapes the peel off her fingers, Nia thinks that maybe their magics aren’t so different after all.


	2. Join

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.”
> 
> \- Simon and Garfunkel, El Condor Pasa
> 
> For the Inktober prompt ‘Swing’.

“ _Nia_ ,” says Jory, shifting from foot to foot. “Let’s go and skate down at Vedyasov Canal. It’ll start snowing soon.”

“I told you I have to finish this cabinet by tomorrow! Can you stop pacing, please?”

“But - it’s Sunsday. You’ve been working on it all week. You said he asked for it in three weeks’ time,” says Jory in her most wheedling tone. It’s ruined by a sneeze: Nia’s workshop is covered in wood shavings and sawdust.

The steady hammering falters for a beat, then resumes. “Arnen said he wanted to see the joining tomorrow. I don’t want to let him down. It’s my first real project and I want it to be perfect.”

Jory sighs gustily. Nia is implacable when she’s under a deadline.

“I’ll help hammer, then,” she says, even though wood is even more boring than meditating. At least she’ll be doing something. “I owe you for last week anyway.”

Nia gives her a look. “You have to be patient. And keep your hands steady. Don’t get your fingers caught -”

“I know, I know,” says Jory, already reaching for the nails. “I’ve cut about six hundred pounds of carrots in the last week, and I only cut myself once.”

Nia shows her how to hold the hammer and feel for the join. While her sister is off doing something complicated with a ruler, Jory tries her best to hammer in the nails so the wood is aligned. She really does have to pause, and look, and think. This isn’t like cutting as fast and evenly as she can. Speed doesn’t matter here. She has to swing smoothly, like stirring sauce, only up and down instead of in a circle.

Automatically, she starts to take meditation-breaths, and swing the hammer in time with them.

“…help me varnish,” Nia is saying, and Jory comes back to herself with a start.

“Here,” says Nia, calm and competent, “Let me have a look.”

Jory steps back and watches her sister run callused fingers over the joins. She can see and feel Nia’s magic working its way through the maple as she checks each groove and grain.

Something in her heart twinges.

This is what she’s been trying to tell Nia forever. It seems it took Daja and learning magic and Camoc’s shop and those awful fires to make Nia more sure of herself.

She knows why it didn’t work - she’s too quick, and Nia’s too cautious. It was like mixing onion and potato for latkes. They needed a — a binding agent, she thinks, grinning at the thought, to get all the lumps out. 


End file.
